I sawa a young woman on TV news yesterday. She was in a wheel chair sitting in a
court room before several serious looking jury and a judge along with TV new
crew and with near tears she said" For 4 years I told my doctor about my
headache and he did nothing - now they have detected a brain tumor." Everybody
seem to agree that the diagnostic test should have been done long ago and the
doctor didnot know his job.
The law is being changed in Minnesota as a result of this trial and they say
that now a patient can sue a doctor as late as 2 years after the diagnosis is
made, as opposed to the previous law - which stated that a doctor can not be
sued after 2 yrs of patient's last visit.
Apparantly this law is in effect in 47 other states in the US.
I find news like these making my life so much more difficult in teaching medical
students about the choice of optimal diagnostic test and often unnecessary tests
., ie CT scan to evaluate for headache.I am afraid that people will see this
case , avoid good history taking and physical exam or might just get that test
for " I document that there is no tumor in this case- I dont care if there is
an microscopic one, I could always say that there was no macroscopic tumor!!"
I hope TV news does not impair our ability to practise EBM. How would the EBM
pundits tackle this situation or answer these kind of questions.
Amit Ghosh, MD
General Internal Medicine
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN 55455
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